296 COME INTO THE GARDEN 



an apple tree or a berry bush. Apples grew 

 wild on many a tree, and berries on wild bushes, 

 and were his for the picking; but turnips and 

 cabbages and all that sort of thing had to be 

 watched over and guarded from prowling beasts, 

 as well as from over-admiring neighbors as the 

 tribe increased. So it was with such as these, if 

 not with these themselves, that he first busied 

 himself. 



Speaking of which it is perhaps of interest, in 

 connection with the serious consideration of the 

 vegetable garden which befits our time and 

 generation, to note that the aboriginal form of 

 the cabbage — hrassica oleracea — which grows 

 wild on the sea cliffs of western and southern 

 Europe and the chalk cliffs of the English Chan- 

 nel, and which is the progenitor of all forms of 

 cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and sprouts, was with- 

 out doubt an important article of food in the 

 diet of the barbarians first occupying these re- 

 gions; for "when history begins it had already 

 been transferred to cultivated grounds and had 

 begun to produce dense rosettes or heads of 

 leaves." 



This great plant family — Brassica — is in- 

 digenous indeed throughout the temperate re- 

 gions of the old world, and includes all the mus- 

 tards and the turnips as well as the cabbages; 



